


The Great Sheep Debacle

by Stellatrane



Series: The Drunk Alchemists [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 20:55:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17567795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stellatrane/pseuds/Stellatrane
Summary: Severus, being the altruistic human he is, visits Wales to help Elias out with a teeny, tiny problem.Needless to say, it does not go well.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The second part of what was originally one work (Severus and the Drunk Alchemists). Comprises the revised end two chapters, plus (eventually) one more.

My dear Severus,  
I may have a slight problem.   
It appears the sheep actually belong to someone. A muggle farmer, in fact, who isn't best pleased that his flock are rainbow-coloured and sprouting spikes. Now, he doesn't know it's me, (and isn't _Obliviate_ a handy charm?) but the thing is, Sev, I'm the only wizard out here, so I need to turn them back before this gets to the Ministry, only I haven't got a clue how to.   
So. It's a minor problem, but quite an urgent minor problem. However, I know that you are, deep down, a lovely person who will not abandon his dearest friend in his hour of need, and you will ride to my aid like like the scrawny knight in billowing black that you are.   
Won't you.   
Knowing that I will see you very soon,  
Elias

***

When Severus finally turns up, a whole week after Elias wrote to him, the first thing he does is spend ten minutes laughing hysterically at the poor, unfortunate sheep that surround Elias's barn.   
'They're... _sparkly_...' he gasps, clutching his stomach. Elias huffs, a little miffed that Severus is not taking the situation as seriously as it undoubtedly is. Then the lambs start skipping past, twirling with every third step, and Severus is laughing so hard he goes completely silent, tears rolling down his face.   
He has to lie down before he can be made to talk sensibly.   
It's a quarter of an hour later that Elias asks him if he's finally capable of speaking coherently.  
'Yes,' says Severus, assuming a funereal expression. Elias's right eye starts twitching.   
'So, can you help?'  
'Yes. I think. I hate to say it,' admits his friend, mouth curving alarming at the corners, 'but we may have to catch one of your rainbow unicorn sheep to experiment on before...'  
'Ah. Yes. Right.'  
There's a short pause.   
'Severus?'  
'Yes?'  
'How in Merlin's name does one catch a sheep?'

***

One does not catch a sheep, thinks Elias as they chase the little demons around the field, one humiliates oneself to the greatest of one's abilities whilst the fluffy midget devils skip around happily, _just out of bloody reach---_  
'AAAAHHHHH!'  
Oh great. Now Severus had fallen into a pile of mud.   
'That,' pants Elias, 'was a surprising girly scream.'  
Severus says a word that would have curled McGonagall's hair as he staggers to his feet, takes a step forward, and promptly slips back into the mud.   
'This,' he hisses through gritted teeth, 'was not how I wanted to spend my Christmas.'  
'Alas,' sighs Elias, 'some things are just--'  
'Come down to Wales, you said! It'll be fun, you said! _A MINOR PROBLEM, YOU SAID!_ '  
'Yeeees,' hedges Elias, 'I may have, um, underestimated the, ah, complexity of the situation...'  
'COMPLEXITY!! IT'S _IMPOSSIBLE!!_ '  
Elias gives a horrified gasp.   
'Severus Snape, take back that awful word this instant!'  
Severus screams something incoherent, moves forward to hex him, and falls into the mud for a third time.   
Elias sniggers.

***

Later, when the whole escapade has been given up after Severus stopped trying to catch sheep and instead started attempting to throttle Elias, the two men are sitting in front of the big open fire in the living room, Severus buried under a mound of soft blankets, and claiming he has pneumonia.   
'I wonder if we could try just summoning them,' remarks Elias thoughtfully, hands wrapped around a mug of hot, strong tea.   
There is silence from the fluffy blanket pile.   
'Sev?'  
A furious face emerges.   
_'What do you mean, we can bloody summon them?!'_  
The lack of mud in the barn means that Severus actually does hex Elias this time, and he goes around for the rest of the evening with foot-long toenails and a huge purple Afro. 

***

'Accio sheep!'  
'Maybe I should try.'  
'Why, because the fact that you're a Ravenclaw automatically makes your spells better than mine?'  
'No, it's actually because you're pathetic at Charms--'  
'I am not pathetic at Charms--'  
'Then why is there not a sheep here after you summoned one?'  
'WELL I DON'T KNOW--'  
'ACCIO SHEEP!'  
'Well, that worked _fabulously_ well.'  
'Shut up.'

***

'They're too far gone.'  
Elias shakes himself out of the stupor he's fallen into.   
'What?'  
'They're too far gone!'  
Elias blinks.   
'Sevvy, you're gonna have to give me a bit more to go on.'  
Severus sighs irritably.   
'The sheep, I mean. What if they're so far removed from what a sheep should be that magic doesn't recognise them as sheep anymore?'  
'And so when we try to summon sheep...' Elias trails off.  
Severus's eyes gleam fanatically.   
'Exactly.'  
Elias frowns.   
'What do we summon then?'

***

'Accio rainbow sparkly unicorn sheep!'  
'Accio rainbow-coloured sheep-like animals!'  
'Accio fluffy spiky things!'  
'Accio four-legged skippy devils!'  
'Accio the reason I fell over in the mud _three times_ yesterday!'  
'Accio the reason Severus has _not stopped complaining_ \--'  
'Accio the reason Elias forced me down here to deal with his petty little problems--'  
'Accio the reason why Severus has, unfairly and unjustly, been trying to hex me senseless--'

***

'I'm not sure that worked as well as it could have done,' says Elias pensively.   
Severus decides not to dignify such an inane comment with a reply, and so gives his patented Snort of Derision (No.3) and continues reading _The Practical Potioneer_.  
'So what are we going to do now?'  
Severus, still reading, arches an eyebrow.   
'We?'  
'Aw, come on Severus, we can't give up now! Quite apart from the fact I'll get a ridiculously heavy fine from the blasted Ministry, you've got to admit it's quite a fun little problem.'  
Severus raises his head to give Elias his You-Are-A-Moron-And-I-Would-Chop-You-Up-For-Potions-Ingredients-If-It-Were-Legal look.   
Elias visibly deflates.   
'What about if I promise to catch the sheep?'  
Severus narrows his eyes.   
'You don't have to go outside at all,' wheedles his friend, 'I'll catch the little demons and you can do the diagnostics and then we'll brew the antidotes.'  
Severus considers.   
'No mud?'  
'No mud.'  
'Fine,' he sighs magnanimously.   
Elias looks unutterably relieved.


	2. Chapter 2

'MERLIN'S BALLS!'  
'Having a little trouble, Elias?' Severus inquires calmly from his seat in the kitchen, staring out through the glass double doors into the carnage in the field.  
'BLOODY-'  
'Now, now,' admonishes Severus, an evil little grin playing on his lips, 'there is no call for language of that sort.'  
Elias, in response, lets out a stream of expletives. Severus sighs in mock disappointment.  
'Just because you have a little bit of mud on your clothes does not excuse the foul words-'  
'I AM COVERED IN SHEEP POO, YOU COMPLETE ARSE!'  
Severus gives an elegant, one-shouldered shrug.  
'I wasn't the one who came up with the agreement,' he says cheerfully.  
Elias looks ready to spit out a particularly venomous reply, then frowns in confusion and looks up at the sky.  
'Was that rain I felt?'  
'I wouldn't know,' replies Severus airily, a smug undertone to his words.  
'Oh, go boil your head,' snaps Elias, still frowning at the clouds, 'if it starts raining, I'm going to-'  
'You're going to what? Shout at it?'  
'I hate you.'  
With a certain inevitability, it does then start raining.  
Quite hard actually, as Elias yells, banging on the doors that Severus has, cackling, locked in his face. The Slytherin remains inside, sipping his coffee and watching his friend slowly get wetter and wetter, until he resembles nothing so much as a sodden rat, blonde hair plastered to his scalp, baleful eyes glaring at him through the glass.

***

'Severus,' comes Elias's sing-song voice, 'wakey-wakey! I have a present for you!  
'Mmmffawhatisit,' mumbles Severus, emerging from the depths of sleep.  
Something heavy lands on him. Something heavy and warm and smelly and spiky and _alive_.  
'AAAAHHHH!'  
'Yet again, Sev, you surprise me with the girliness of your shrieks,' snickers Elias.  
'THERE'S ONE OF YOUR MUTANT SPARKLY DEMON SHEEP ON MY BED!'  
'Indeed there is. It's called revenge, Sevvy.'  
'GET IT BLOODY OFF ME OR I SWEAR-'  
'Oh, hush your whinging,' sighs the Ravenclaw, 'Lulabelle's not hurting you.'  
' _LULABELLE?!_ '  
'Ooh, I didn't think it was possible for you to go that high. Learn something new every day, don't you?'

***

'Let's look on the bright side,' says Elias cheerfully over breakfast, 'I caught a sheep for you! We can cure them and make sure the Ministry doesn't lynch me!'  
Severus, whose face is blacker than the storm of last night, really doesn't think he'd mind an Elias-lynching right now. Hell, he'd probably be leading the mob.  
'Stop plotting my murder,' chides his friend, an irrepressibly big grin on his face as he tucks into eggs and bacon.  
Severus scowls at him (and a very terrifying scowl it is too - No.4, capable of making small children cry) and sips his orange juice in a way that promises death to all foolish enough to breathe in his presence.  
Elias giggles.  
Severus scowls some more, downs his juice and stands.  
'Right. Fetch your rainbow sparkly demon sheep and let's get this over with.'  
'Don't call her a demon!' cries Elias, 'you're not a demon, are you?' he coos to something under the table.  
Severus pales.  
'Is it under the bloody table?' he hisses, backing away even as he speaks.  
A sparkly, horned head emerges from beneath the tablecloth.  
'Lulabelle's not an it, are you sweetums,' says Elias, petting the sheep, 'you're a very beautiful mutant sheep, yes you are!'  
Severus straightens in an attempt to show how little he is frightened of the murderous beast being stroked by his (clearly completely insane) friend.  
'When you have quite finished,' he says, eyes never leaving Lulabelle, 'I will be in the shed, ready for the diagnostics.'  
Lulabelle glares at him.  
'And tell your mutant demon to stop giving me the evil eye,' he adds as he leaves. Elias swears he hears him mutter, 'that's my job,' as he goes.  
Lulabelle gets an extra piece of toast for that.

***

'Great Merlin and Morgana, what did you do to these things?' asks Severus, looking askance at his friend, who is currently shuffling his feet and looking guilty.  
'Well that's sort of what we're - you're -trying to find out...' he mumbles shiftily, looking at the ground.  
'A Plinkifort potion? On sheep?!'  
'Ah, yes, I do remember that,' says Elias thoughtfully, 'I chucked out one of the failed batches and it must have gotten into their water supply...'  
Severus turns around and smacks him over the head.  
'Ow!' cries Elias, looking injured and rubbing the back of his head.  
'You utter moron! I've met Flobberworms with more sense than you!'  
'Well it's not my... Actually, it kind of is my fault, isn't it?' says Elias pensively.  
Severus groans.  
'It's completely your fault! How you got into Ravenclaw, I will never fathom.'  
'Yes, yes, yes, sorry, sorry, sorry, now do we know what's actually wrong with them?' Elias's tone is verging on impatient, 'It won't be long till the Ministry are on my tail, Sev, and it's Christmas Eve in three days!'  
Severus shudders.  
'We're not doing anything for Christmas, are we?'  
Elias stares at him like he's gone mad.  
'What do you mean, "not doing anything"?! It's Christmas!'  
Severus eyes him suspiciously.  
'You say that like it's an excuse for everything, when I assure you, in reality it is not. Any attempts at tinsel, carols, and general merriment-'  
'Will be met with ice water and Glare No.7, yeah, yeah, I know.'  
'And yet you still persist,' mutters Severus, with the aforementioned Glare No.7 (You Are Smiling And I Will Make You Cry Instead) and a particularly vicious stab of his wand in the direction of Lulabelle.  
'Eventually, I will break you,' says his friend with disturbing cheerfulness, 'and then you'll be singing God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs as loud and out-of-tune as all the rest of us.'  
'Peasants,' mutters Severus, and thinks longingly of the Grinch's cave.

***

The Official List of What Is Wrong With Elias's Demon Sheep:  
\- Failed Beautification Potion  
\- Failed Plinkifort Potion  
\- Wiggenweld Potion  
\- Overexposure to Protection Rune Sequence 22 (Base Eihwaz)  
\- Combined Draught of Peace and Cheering Charm  
\- Potion 34B (Experimental version)  
\- Draught A17 (Version 2)  
\- Concentrated essence of Boomslang  
'That's a rather long list,' remarks Elias. He actually sounds vaguely impressed, which does worry Severus somewhat.  
'We're going to have to brew a ton of antidotes,' he continues, 'I'll have to check my stocks... I was running low on lacewing flies last time I looked... That'll need a trip to Diagon Alley for sure...'  
'Oh joy,' mutters Severus, 'Diagon at Christmas.'  
'Christmas!' cries Elias, making Severus jump, 'I'd forgotten about Christmas! We'll need a tree, and turkey, and I'll get the decorations down from the attic-'  
'What about the Ministry?' interjects Severus hopefully.  
Elias waves a dismissive hand.  
'They'll be fine for a few more days,' he says, 'and we can't just skip Christmas!'  
'I don't mind,' Severus promises, a note of desperation in his voice.  
'Nonsense!' Elias says briskly, and by his tone, Severus knows that all is lost.  
He wonders if it's too late to run away to a small, unplottable island in the Pacific.  
Somewhere with no sheep.

***

Diagon Alley really is hideous two days before Christmas, thinks Elias as he squeezes between a red-headed woman with a plethora of small and not-so-small boys and a rather portly man carrying a number of bags from the Diagon branch of Honeydukes. The apothecary, when he finally reaches it, is mercifully empty - presumably because no one wants to spend their Christmas in a shop that smells like the wrong end of a Kappa. As well as the lacewing flies, he grabs a couple of scoops of black beetle eyes (they're so cheap here, it's almost rude not to), a plait of unicorn hair (really not cheap at all), some dittany and a murtlap plant. It's a shame they don't sell the essence pre-prepared, but the stuff doesn't really keep, and it's pretty simple to do it himself.  
His next stop is Flourish & Blotts, which, unfortunately, is heaving. He makes his way quickly between the rows, grabbing a couple of worthy tomes for the less unpleasant members of the Royal Society as well as the books Severus has written down for him in spiky handwriting. He frowns a bit when he sees _A Moste Anciente Historie Of The Humble Sock_ , but presumes that the enigma that is his friend has his reasons, and, if past experience is anything to go by, those reasons probably start with a D and end with -umbledore. A couple more Christmas presents of his own, and the dreaded trip is over. He's just got time for a quick drink in the Leaky Cauldron before he Apparates back to Wales. Or at least, what would have been a quick drink if he hadn't run into a Society member, an old flame, and couple of Hogwarts friends, all of whom are out doing last minute shopping, and all of whom (apart from the Society bloke, Fritsomm, but he's notoriously stingy) buy him at least one drink - Paul and Azaria Banks buy their little group about seven. When he finally staggers back, Severus won't let him go near the shed (his shed! His own brewing shed!) and insists that he goes to bed instead. Elias does, with much grumbling about how 10.30 is far too early a bedtime for anyone over the age of eleven, and promptly passes out, fully clothed, on top of the covers.

***

'Murtlap essence.'  
Elias passes Severus the Murtlap essence.  
'Ladle - no, not that ladle, moron, a clean one.'  
Elias passes Severus a clean ladle.  
'Beetle eyes.'  
Elias passes Severus the beetle eyes.  
'Maybe I could help-'  
'No.'  
'Severus, it's my she-'  
'Hold this.'  
'My shed, and my sheep-'  
'More murtlap.'  
Elias sighs, and passes Severus some more murtlap essence.  
The potion starts to smoke and Severus freezes.  
'Is it meant to do that?' asks Elias curiously, peering over the top. Severus yanks him back just as a column of green fire shoots up from the mixture, and dies back down again just as suddenly.  
'Okay, I _know_ it wasn't meant to do _that_ ,' Elias says, staring up at the new skylight in his shed roof. Severus has gotten over his paralysis and is now furiously stirring the luminous orange solution anti-clockwise.  
'Of course it was meant to do that,' he snaps irritably. Elias stares at him.  
'Right,' he says slowly, and with much disbelief, 'massive green flames were meant to come out of the cauldron and nearly singe my eyebrows off.'  
'Yes,' says Severus curtly, now adding clockwise stirs every thirty seconds.  
'Are you completely _insane_ -'  
'Dittany.'  
Elias passes him the dittany.


	3. Chapter 3

When Severus comes down for breakfast the next morning, it looks as if a Christmas monster has thrown up all over the room. In the middle of the explosion of tinsel, baubles and horribly tacky signs sits Elias, munching his cereal with a huge grin.   
'What. Have. You. Done,' whispers Severus, surveying the carnage with an expression of sheer horror on his even-paler-than-usual face.   
'It's Christmas Eve!!' Elias cries happily, practically bouncing up and down on his chair.   
'Why,' asks Severus, sinking quietly down into the nearest chair and wondering how early is too early to start drinking.   
'Well,' says Elias, 'on the 24th of December-'  
'I don't need the literal explanation of why it is Christmas Eve, I want you to tell me why you have done this to your kitchen!'  
'Isn't it brilliant?' agrees Elias.   
Severus decides that 8.24 in the morning is a perfectly reasonable time to start consuming alcohol.   
'Severus,' hesitates Elias a couple of minutes later, looking at his large glass of whiskey with some consternation, 'it's 8.26 in the morning.'  
Severus glowers at him.   
'I need something to numb the pain,' he announces, downing half the glass.   
Elias just rolls his eyes and makes Severus toast, removing the plush Father Christmas toys from the bread bin with a small frown.  
'You should be hanging on the cupboards,' he scolds them.   
'I knew it!' shrieks Severus slightly hysterically, 'you're plotting with them! You're all in it together!!'  
Elias thinks that 8.26 is very definitely too early to start drinking. However, by the time Severus has outlined his conspiracy theory (which manages to involve not just the Father Christmases, tinsel and baubles, but Dumbledore, Lulabelle and half the Potions Society) he has drastically reconsidered his position, and is nursing his third glass of wine. Severus has made it through most of the whiskey bottle already and it's barely half past nine.   
By ten o'clock, Elias is attempting to lead the kitchen in several rousing carols.   
'God rest ye merry Hippogriffs, let nothing you dis--'  
'SHUT UP!'

**

Christmas Day dawns fuzzy and alcohol-soaked. Somewhere during the evening, the rain had turned to snow, coating the fields and hills, the still white broken only by the occasional rainbow-patterned dot of a sheep in the distance.   
The tolling of a church bell rouses Severus first, who spends his first waking thought imagining melting said bell down into a cauldron. He stumbles downstairs in the hope of finding some coffee, and by the time Elias has staggered into the kitchen, Severus is feeling almost human again.   
Elias manages to miss the chair he’s pulled out, and falls onto the hard, cold, stone floor. This is, quite frankly, the best Christmas present Severus could ask for, and he tells his friend as much. Elias merely groans, and shifts so he’s fully horizontal on the floor.   
‘We might have to skip Christmas this year,’ he mumbles, and Severus cackles.  
Christmas Day is thus spent by Elias trying to find the most comfortable spot in the barn to sleep off his headache, and by Severus enjoying the tranquillity of the brewing shed in the absence of its owner. As a result, he gets quite a lot done, and Elias, braving the kitchen the next morning in a much less pitiable state, is rather surprised to find that Severus is already at the stage where he can gleefully suggest a preliminary test on Lulabelle, waving aside Elias’ concern for the demon-sheep.  
‘This has the potential to go very badly,’ Elias points out, and Severus snorts.  
‘That never seems to have stopped you before now.’  
Elias has no response to that, and so spends the next hour harrumphing and attempting to glare at Severus (who in turn just smirks at him).

**

‘Now, I think we’ll have to contain her somehow, as there should be a magical charge given off if the potion works, but other than that it should be perfectly safe.’  
‘Should be as in Lulabelle will be fine?’  
Severus shrugs.   
‘Maybe?’  
Elias hits him.  
Severus’ glare is a lot more effective than his.  
Lulabelle, standing in the middle of the shed, lets out an aggrieved bleat, and the two wizards turn back to her.   
‘I thought we could pour it into a trough of some sort, rather than attempting to wrestle it down her throat.’  
‘Sounds sensible,’ Elias nods.  
‘That means you need to Transfigure one, dolt.’  
‘Why me?’  
‘You live in the countryside! Do you think I have any idea what a trough looks like?’  
‘Peasant.’  
‘Bumpkin.’  
Elias waves his wand somewhat haphazardly at a sad-looking caldron with the bottom burned out, and it becomes a slightly-less-sad-looking trough. He levitates it over to them, and Severus pours a bit of the potion into the bottom.  
Lulabelle looks very suspicious indeed.  
Elias coughs. ‘Er, Sev, I don’t think she’s—’  
‘Yes, I can see that.’  
‘So, what—’  
‘I am a Potions Master, not a sheep farmer. You should know this sort of thing, you live with them.’  
Elias thinks for a while.  
‘Do sheep have a feed of some sort? Or do they just eat grass?’  
‘I have less than no idea why you think I, a Potions Master, would know.’  
‘I hate you sometimes.’  
‘I hate you too.’  
Sheep, as it turns out, can eat hay, and so they let the antidote soak into it before attempting once more to feed it to Lulabelle. As she eats it, the two men watch in breathless suspense, standing behind the bespelled bulletproof glass shield Elias uses for his more volatile brewing. She eats about two-thirds of the infused hay before her coat starts to shift to its normal off-white, accompanied only by a slight ripple in the air around them.  
‘That was anticlimactic,’ Elias mutters.  
‘She could still burst into flames,’ remarks Severus prosaically, ‘there’s hope yet.’

**

Lulabelle, much to Severus’ disappointment, continues to refuse to spontaneously combust throughout the 24-hour observation period, and so they release her back into the field, and set about doctoring the hay for the rest of the sheep.   
When the next morning dawns, the sheep have successfully blended into the snow, and Severus resolves to wash his hands of the whole affair and devote the remaining years of his life to forgetting there had ever been a rainbow sheep named Lulabelle in his bed.

He never thought there would be a day when he actually looked forward to returning to Hogwarts.

**

Severus is engaged in packing his things in such a way as to prevent soot from the Floo infiltrating everything, when Elias hears the faint hum of his ward lines activate. A moment later, the doorbell rings. Being an upstanding citizen, he detaches himself from the latest issue of The Ruminating Runic and peers out to find a very official and capable-looking woman standing outside in his field.   
This can only be bad.   
'Potions and Runic Master Elias Sylvan?' inquires the woman in a bored tone.   
'Er,' says Elias, 'yes?'   
'My name is Inspector Vale of the DMLE, and I'm here to investigate an abnormally large use of magic in this area on the night of the 27th December 1987, and also the apparent partial Obliviation of a Muggle farmer by the name of Clarence Tupworthy.'  
'Ah,' says Elias, 'right. Do you want to come in?'  
'Thank you,' says the Ministry official, in a tone which couldn't have been less grateful if it had tried, and steps over the threshold.  
Alas, Elias's runic warding takes umbrage at several objects in her bag, and shoves her straight back out again.   
Inspector Vale is not pleased.   
'These are Code 7 runes!' she snaps at a bewildered Elias, 'highly restricted and not for civilian use! Where is your permit?'  
'Permit?' asks Elias, baffled. Inspector Vale glares at him.   
'Um, yes, permit,' he says, managing to sound only mildly panicked, 'I'll just go and get that...'  
Vale attempts to follow him, but is thrown back yet again, and so instead stands stewing in deep irritation until, fifteen minutes later, Elias returns, triumphantly bearing a scrappy bit of green paper.   
'Permit!' he announces gleefully, and Vale's lip curls as he hands it to her. Really, she's like a female version of Severus.   
'This does all seem to be in order,' she admits, slightly regretfully. Elias beams.   
'That's great! Well, it was lovely to see you,' he says, trying to close the door on her, 'do come again--'  
'Not so fast, Master Sylvan,' she says, jamming her foot in the door as Elias visibly wilts.   
'There is still the small matter of the partial Obliviation of a Muggle as well as the remarkable surge in magic yesterday.'  
'Oh, yes,' Elias mumbles, 'of course. How could I have forgotten. Please do come in,' he continues louder, suppressing a vindictive grin as Vale is prevented from entering the barn for a third time.   
Of course, that is the moment that Severus chooses to poke his beaky nose around the door and spots the unfortunate Inspector attempting (and failing) to enter.   
‘Some problem, Elias?’  
‘Er,’ says Elias, ‘well.’  
‘Professor Snape, isn’t it?’ asks the woman briskly.  
Purely on principle, Severus glares at her.   
‘I don’t suppose you’d have any knowledge about an abnormally large surge of magic in this area last night?’  
Severus blinks. Elias can clearly see on his face that he is thinking exactly the same thing he is. The single ripple of magical energy given off by Lulabelle would not have mattered much, but multiply that by the scores of sheep outside and suddenly there was a Ministry-grade problem standing right on his doorstep.  
‘Well, when one comes to the house of a Potions and Runic master specialising in experimental activities, one would be a fool indeed not to expect there to be some magical volatility inherent in such activities,’ Severus sneers, a beat too late (but Elias hopes he’s the only one to notice that).  
Inspector Vale raises an eyebrow. ‘And what, exactly, was the potion that caused this particular… volatility?’  
Severus pauses.  
'Wolfsbane,' Elias blurts out.   
Both the Ministry official and Severus stare at him in bewilderment.   
'We were working on the development of the Wolfsbane potion,' he continues, voice gaining conviction, 'it's a very important breakthrough for lycanthropy, you know, madam, only I'm afraid it was disturbed it at one of the more delicate stages, hence the... um... Surge... Because of, erm...'  
'The explosion,' finishes Severus.   
'Yes,' says Elias, nodding vigorously.   
The ministry official blinks.   
'Explosion,' she repeats in a tone dryer than the Antarctic. Elias turns to Severus, willing him to come up with something brilliant. Severus smiles his Smile Of Doom.   
'Yes, explosion,' he says silkily, 'I take it you are familiar with the meaning of the word, Inspector Vale?'  
Vale bristles.   
'Of course I--'  
'Because,' continues Severus, curling his lip slightly, 'I would be very disappointed to hear that a Ministry official was incapable of understanding such a simple explanation. Or should we have used smaller words?'  
Vale is practically spitting now.   
'No, Professor Snape, I understand perfectly,' she says through gritted teeth.  
'Excellent,' Severus purrs. ‘And as Wolfsbane testing is permitted by Clause 56b of the 1971 Experimental Potions Act, I really can’t see the need for your continued presence here.’  
Vale’s teeth are grinding together so hard, Elias doubts there’ll be anything left but stumps by the time she finally leaves.  
‘Well it appears everything is in order,’ she grimaces.  
'Yes? Excellent!' Elias bounces cheerfully, 'I'm so glad everything could be cleared up. Lovely to see you, Inspector,' he continues, practically shoving her out of the doorway, and slamming it her face, 'and don't ever, ever come again.'  
Severus turns to him. ‘Wolfsbane?’  
Elias shrugs. ‘I have a horrifyingly vague memory of you attempting a batch when you were drunk on Christmas Eve.’ His face turns thoughtful. ‘I think it’s still out back, actually. Might bear testing, having sat for a while.’  
His face suddenly lights up. ‘I know! We could test it on the she—’  
‘NO.’


End file.
